Sentence Correction

Gas hydrates, chemical compounds of water and natural gas, are increasingly being studied for their potential to be huge reservoirs of energy, possibly causing sea floor instability, and significant contributors to global warming.





A. to be huge reservoirs of energy, possibly causing sea floor instability, and
B. to be huge reservoirs of energy, possibly causing sea floor instability, and even as
C. as huge reservoirs of energy, possibly causing sea floor instability, and
D. as huge reservoirs of energy, and the possible cause of sea floor instability
E. as huge reservoirs of energy, as possible causes of sea floor instability, and even as


What do you think is the correct answer?
Is it the question being asked of regarding the parallel or being approached by semantic meaning. I would choose A but the E is the strong candidate for the correct answer though. Is anybody who has confidence in the correct answer on it?

Their potential needs the “to be" form, “as” is incorrect because you are not comparing anything, and even if you were comparing you would need “like” (comparison for nouns)

So that leaves A and B. B is again using “as” incorrectly so that leaves A. Gas hydrates, chemical compounds of water and natural gas, are increasingly being studied for their potential to be huge reservoirs…and (to be) significant contributors to global warming

Can "as" be the meaing of "in the role" or "status of" as a preposition? I think the "as" in the sentence is used as that meaing, not the "as" of connoting comparison. So the correct answer should be E, for it is well organized in terms of its parallel structure like as A, as B, and as C.

Answer E

I am going with E.

A classic case of parallelism. Sentence laso says that "Compounds are increasingly studies as X, as Y, as Z"

Yeah, I guess "as" can have thta meaning too. In that case E will eb perfect...

In E, isn't "potential ... as possible causes" awkward and redundant ?

A looks better IMHO

I also think E .

Jay - E might be right because I checked this in Google.

Copy the sentence and search for it in Google.

Jay - E might be right because I checked this in Google.

Copy the sentence and search for it in Google.

really liked the idea of googling the sentence.

source : https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_19493094

para : What they had were bits of gas hydrates--chemical compounds that are increasingly being studied for their potential as huge reservoirs of energy, as possible causes of sea floor instability, and even as significant contributors to global warming. Scientists had long speculated about them and even made them in the laboratory, but until now only a few had been seen in nature.

What is the answer to this one. I thought the idiom was "potential to" having potenital as something doesnt sound right even if the as is not being used as a comparison. I do however think E has better parallel construction but I would still vote for A because the idiom should be potenital to...............

If you search google for "Potential as" you will find many sentences using "Potential as" format.Is there any standard reference or encyclopedia for Idioms that can certify its usage?

I think this is a typical question for parallelism.. hence i would go with E

I am also with E